What does thorium-232 turn into after it goes through alpha decay?

) is the main naturally occurring isotope of thorium, with a relative abundance of 99.98%. It has a half life of 14 billion years, which makes it the longest-lived isotope of thorium. It decays by alpha decay to radium-228; its decay chain terminates at stable lead-208.

What is the decay constant for thorium-232?

The 232Th decay constant is imprecise (±0.5%) relative to those of 235U or 238U (<0.07%) and may produce systematic age differences of up to 20 m.y. (95%) at 2 Ga between the U-Pb and Th-Pb systems.

What type of radiation does thorium-232 emit?

Thorium-232 (232Th) is present in significant amounts in the Earth’s crust and is an alpha-emitting radionuclide, which decays to radium-228 (228Ra), which is a beta emitter with a half-life of about six years; it emits no significant gamma radiation.

Does thorium-232 emit gamma rays?

The radioactive decay series of 232Th is complex and produces alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.

Does thorium react with water?

Environmental stability: Thorium will slowly react with water, oxygen, and other compounds to form a wide variety of tungsten compounds.

How is thorium-232 used?

Thorium-232 is, however, fertile. Being fertile means that thorium is capable of being converted into a fissile material, i.e. into a material that is capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction. To undertake this process and to produce a useable fuel source, it is necessary to devise a source of neutrons.

Is thorium water soluble?

4.2 PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES Water-soluble thorium compounds include the chloride, fluoride, nitrate, and sulfate salts (Weast 1983). These compounds dissolve fairly readily in water. Soluble thorium compounds, as a class, have greater bioavailability than the insoluble thorium compounds.

What is the daughter product of thorium-232?

U-232 is a product in the Th-232 to U-233 conversion reactions and is a problem due to the build-up of highly gamma active daughter products as explained in Section 7 U-234 the corresponding product in the U-238 to U-239 conversion is only weakly radioactive.

Is thorium-232 fissile?

Thorium (Th-232) is not itself fissile and so is not directly usable in a thermal neutron reactor. However, it is ‘fertile’ and upon absorbing a neutron will transmute to uranium-233 (U-233)a, which is an excellent fissile fuel materialb. In this regard it is similar to uranium-238 (which transmutes to plutonium-239).

How many protons does thorium-232 have?

Thorium-232 is composed of 90 protons, 142 neutrons, and 90 electrons.

What is thorium gamma spectroscopy?

Thorium Gamma Spectrometry. January 31, 2016 English Posts, Gamma Spectrometry 5,052 Views. Thorium is a chemical element with symbol Th and atomic number 90. A radioactive actinide metal, thorium is one of only three radioactive elements that still occurs in quantity in nature as a primordial element (the other two being bismuth and uranium).

What is the half-life of thorium 232?

Thorium 232 has a physical half-life of 13.9 billion years. Thorium 232 also decays by alpha-particle emission and has a biological half-life of 200–400 years.

What is thorium 232 Th used for?

232 Th is a fertile material able to absorb a neutron and undergo transmutation into the fissile nuclide uranium-233, which is the basis of the thorium fuel cycle. In the form of Thorotrast, a thorium dioxide suspension, it was used as a contrast medium in early X-ray diagnostics. Thorium-232 is now classified as carcinogenic.

How to calculate U-232 concentration in thorium cycle?

The U-232 production and destruction are investigated in thorium cycle. The U-232 concentration is calculated using MCNPX code. The U-232 saturation concentration is computed by analytic method. The U-232 concentration as a function of burnup, average neutron energy and power density are investigated.